The Girl Who Illuminates Time
by roisaber
Summary: Madoka discovers that godlike powers aren't easy to weild, and she wakes up to find herself in a strange new world. Will she be able to fit in? Why, exactly, has the universe picked this specific time and place as her destination?
1. Chapter 1: The Goddess Descends

**The Goddess Descends**

Madoka realized here are a hundred thousand million worlds, and a million billion trillion iterations of each world, splayed out through timespace like a vast net of pearls. Each contained a flawless refraction of every other. She saw the whole universe as an infinitely large crystal growing in an infinitely larger infinity, expanding at an infinitely growing rate of speed. It was as if a single drop of Ice-9 had fallen into a vast ocean of nothingness and was hard at work turning the infinite emptiness into a riot of color and joy. She chased its edge and the edge fled from her; the faster she pursued it, the faster it withdrew from her. Madoka was a little scared, but the raw beauty was exhilarating. She reached out and the universe thrummed at her touch like the strings of some great instrument. She realized that with every breath she took - or didn't take - the universe burst forth in new directions, becoming more and more beautiful at an infinitely increasing rate of speed. She decided to try something. Then, she fell.

Madoka awoke alone on the shore of a great bay when a fisherman nudged her with his rod. She felt like she'd been asleep for hundreds of years, and there was a faint collection of memories she couldn't quite grasp; it seemed as though she'd had the longest and most magnificent dream. She stirred on the sand, and the air smelled like salt and drying seaweed. She was embarrassed by a thin strand of drool connecting her face to the sandy beach below.

"Oi! Young miss?" asked a curious male voice, in an archaic dialect that sounded like it came out of a musty old book.

She picked her head off the sand. With a start, she realized she was naked, and she blushed furiously.

"Um, hello?" she asked while reaching down to cover her underripe breasts.

"Are you alright, then?"

Her interlocutor was a few years older than she was. His face was covered in stubble, and despite his obvious effort, he was unable to avoid sneaking quick glances at her most private regions. He had the rough, craggy handsomeness of a man who worked for a living, and he was dressed in a simple tunic and light pair of pants. He was carrying a fishing pole, and he had a serious look on his face, in spite of his unavoidable curiosity about her more delicate curves and crevasses. His black hair and dark, tinted eyes reminded her of someone, but the name was stuck on the tip of her tongue and she just couldn't produce it.

"Um," she asked nervously, trying to cover all of herself at once. "Where am I?"

The man shook his head. "If you're a Joroguma, I can assure you my meat is gamey and I've got nothing worth stealing. I'm just a simple man. I fish and I take care of my poor old grandmother."

"Is this Mitakihara?" she asked, still blushing and searching the shore for familiar landmarks.

"Mitakihara?" the man asked curiously. "No, this is Edo. Look, haven't you got anything to wear?"

"I - I don't remember anything," she confessed.

The man graciously took off his jacket and threw it down to her. Gratefully, she arranged it around herself to cover the most square footage of her body that it could possibly conceal.

The man grunted. "I'd better take you to see my grandmother. She's old and infirm, but she's lived a long time, and she always knows what to do when things like this happen. If you're a Rokurokubi in disguise, I beg of you, don't eat her! Take me instead."

"I promise I won't anyone," Madoka answered.

Mollified, the man held out his hand to help pick her up out of the sand. "My name is Eisuke. If you allow me to present you to my grandmother, I'm sure she can help you if you're in any kind of trouble. They say she's a witch, but she really has a kind heart… egh, don't tell her I said that!"

"My name is Madoka," she said, trying to match his formal tones and failing.

"You talk funny. Look, are you coming with me or not? I'm sure the boss has already left without me, so that's another day gone to the birds."

She quickly bobbed up and down in a rapid-fire bow. "Thank you so much! I'd be honored to meet your grandmother."

With Eisuke in the lead, the pair threaded through the streets of the town called Edo. Madoka gawked at the sights while the sights gawked right back at her, though Eisuke's intense expression kept anyone from saying anything to the strange girl wearing nothing but his roughly woven jacket. Madoka recognized hardly anything; the architecture seemed like the old, historic buildings, and there was no electricity to be seen at all. No phone, no lights, no motorcars - not a single luxury. Could this really be Meiji era Tokyo?

Still, despite the lack of modern amenities, it was a very lovely city. Thousands of people were bustling through the streets, carrying sacks and pushing carts and hawking their wares to anyone who slowed down for long enough to be yelled at. Fresh seafood crackled on grills run by smiling entrepreneurs and the aroma of breakfast straight from the sea tantalized Madoka's nose. Shops were opening for the day, selling jewelry and textiles and paper, and crowds jostled for position in line at the numerous restaurants. The city she'd known only from history books was alive and busier than she ever could have imagined. People stared at the pare as they hurried by.

Eisuke stopped in front of a run-down looking house that might have really been something, in its time. The name plaque on the door read Sanada. Eisuke herded the marginally dressed Madoka inside before they could attract any more attention.

"Wait here," Eisuke said as soon as they were inside the compact foyer of the two story building. "I'll go explain to grandmother."

He left Madoka in the entryway while he exited into the main room. It seemed to Madoka that the house told the story of a once-great family towards the end a long decline. Wilted flowers sat in vases atop the brown wood walls, and everything looked like it hadn't seen a good dusting in years. The rice paper in the inner walls was browned and corroded from neglect. The superstructure of the house seemed intact, but it lacked the spit shine and polish she'd come to expect of houses from the Edo period after visiting a museum in KotoCity. Finally, Eisuke returned to retrieve her from the house's foyer.

"Grandmother will see you now." He paused. "I have to warn you, she's a little… uh… eccentric. But she doesn't mean any harm."

Madoka nodded cheerfully. "Okay!"

"Oh-kay?" Eisuke was perplexed, and Madoka blushed.

Of course he wouldn't be in the market for twentieth century English slang.

"It means 'good.' I'd love to meet her."

So, Eisuke urged her into the house's main room, where an old but spry woman sat on a cushion in front of the central fire pit, fussing with a small fire and drinking liberally from a ceramic cup of sake in front of her. She examined the young lady from head to toe, her eyes sparkling. Madoka bowed deeply to her, unaware that Eisuke couldn't help but stare at her ass as she did so.

"Sit down, sit down," the old woman cackled. "You should leave _some_ things to the imagination, my dear. Eisuke, go on, get out of here."

"But - " the young man protested.

"I said git!"

Eisuke fled.

The old woman was thoughtful. "So, you're the young lady who's going to marry my grandson. Well, you don't seem to have a lot going on in the 'talent' department, but I expect you have some growing to do yet."

Madoka blushed furiously and drew the jacket around herself more tightly.

Eisuke's grandmother leaned forward conspiratorially. "Madoka-chan, if you go into my bedroom and search the bottom drawer of the dresser next to my bed, you'll find a scarlet yukata that I used to wear in my wild younger days. It'd be a scandal for me to put it on now, but I think you'd look absolutely gorgeous in it. I'd help you find it, but your grandmother Sanada has been lame since her leg was broke by a nasty young dragon. Oh, and you can call me grandmother."

"Okay!" Madoka said, once again forgetting to stick to a more archaic dialect. "Thank you very much, Grandmother Sanada."

The old woman mumbled something and took another big swig from her sake cup. Madoka scurried out and searched the house for the elderly woman's room. Most of the rooms of the house were empty, bare right down to the hard wood floors. As far as Madoka could tell, the last remaining members of the Sanada clan were Eisuke and his strange grandmother. She finally found the correct room, and sure enough, there was a muted scarlet yukata in the bottom drawer of a dresser. Gratefully, she shucked off the jacket and dressed in the traditional Japanese style, glad to be preserving a little more of her modesty. She returned to the main room to find grandmother Sanada pouring a new cupful of sake.

"Just as I prophesized – you look lovely in that yukata."

"Thank you, grandmother," Madoka replied, careful to use formal Japanese instead of some knockoff English slang.

Have some, girl," she said, sliding another ceramic cup across the hard wood floors of the house.

"Oh, um, okay," Madoka assented.

She poured herself a cup of the cool, sticky rice beverage, took a deep sip, and then started furiously coughing. She occasionally was served sake back at home, but it was only on special occasions and her parents would water it down for a child's palette. This was the first time she'd drunk any of the real stuff, and her eyes and throat stung from the burning liquor. Grandmother Sanada laughed uproariously.

"So, Madoka-chan, you're from another world," the old woman stated.

Madoka's coughing fit intensified.

"Oh, we Mahou Shoujo can always tell. I can also see that you're a Mahou Shoujo as well, and if I'm not mistaken, the biggest, baddest one of them all. I wonder how you ended up here in Edo."

Madoka had no idea how to explain herself, so she searched for a metaphor. "I plucked a string on a shamisen and then I was here."

"Ha!" Grandmother Sanada was triumphant. "That's what you get for mucking about with something you don't understand. But you'll find life here isn't so bad, even if you _do_ come from a world of lightning-powered carriages and metal birds that fly faster than thunder."

"How do you know all this?" Madoka asked in wonder.

"Didn't that layabout grandson of mine tell you? I'm the greatest witch in all of Edo! Queen of the Oni and master of the fox spirits!"

Madoka smiled politely. After all, Eisuke had given her fair warning that his grandmother was odd. Grandmother Sanada poured herself yet another cup of sake, and another for Madoka, too, in spite of her carefully worded protests.

"Drink up, Madoka-chan! Where the Hell do you think you are, Mekka?"

Madoka sipped politely on the fermented rice beverage. It burned just as much as it had the last time.

"Naturally, if you're going to be my granddaughter-in-law, you'll have to stay here. I'll have Eisuke-kun make you up a futon in one of the rooms. And, naturally I'll be expecting you to earn your keep. You can cook, clean, and do the shopping, I presume?"

Madoka considered her options, which were limited. She could try jumping back up to the strange domain from which she'd fallen, but the truth was, she found herself liking Eisuke and his strange grandmother. She missed her family in Mitakihara, of course, but part of how she became a goddess in the first place was undoing the history that led her to being their daughter in the first place. To them, she would just be a strange girl uttering nonsense. And if she interfered back in the past – that was, if she interfered in the future – none of the other Mahou Shoujo companions would have the chance they deserved to try leading their own lives. Finally, she had faith that if the universe sent her here unasked there must be a good reason for it. She decided to stay.

"Of course, Grandmother! Thank you so much for your generosity."

The old woman grunted. "What you lack in the chest you make up for in politeness, I'll give you that."

Madoka had a question she couldn't quite get out of her head. "You know, Grandmother – Eisuke reminds me of someone important, but back from my own world."

"Do you believe in reincarnation?" Sanada asked her.

Madoka had never really thought about it seriously. "I- I guess so. Life has to come from somewhere and go somewhere at the end, right?"

"Well, don't! It's a whole lot of superstitious, gong-clanging mumbo jumbo. You won't be stuffing me back into the body of some diaper-shitting infant, not without a fight you won't soon forget. But that doesn't mean there are no such things as souls, girl. Imagine a soul as a stone cast into the center of a perfectly still lake. The waves ripple out, running into various obstacles and over different terrain in the lakebed, and by the time they arrive on all the different edges of the lake they all look subtly different. And then they bounce off the lake shore and ripple back towards the center."

Madoka thought about this carefully. "So you're saying that one personality can animate many different bodies at different times without directly going from one to the other, and then they all come back together in the end?"

"Something like that," the old woman admitted. "It's like a metaphor. You know, one time I had this horse who reminded me of a dear friend from when I was about your age…"

Grandmother Sanada embarked on an epic feat of storytelling that seemed engineered precisely to test Madoka's patience. She jumped from tangent to tangent, giving details about the life she'd spent wandering Japan during the Tokugawa era. She talked about singing, gambling, and the pros and cons of selling her pussy for hard coin; about her eventual marriage and the death of her husband; about the birth of her son, his marriage, and both of their deaths in a massacre that followed a battle between two cruel shoguns. Madoka was bored and scandalized in due turn. In spite of her best efforts, Madoka found herself starting to nod of, lulled by the sake and the grainy mellifluousness of the old woman's voice.

"And _that_ is how I became known as the horse-fucker of Kumamoto," the old woman concluded.

Madoka was startled back into full awareness. "Ehhhhhh?!"

Grandmother Sanada started cackling hysterically. "I'm lying, of course. They never caught me. I just wanted to make sure you were still paying attention. At any rate, I'm not surprised Eisuke seems so familiar to you. After all, you're going to marry him, so maybe you're having premonitions from the future."

"You're very kind," Madoka said.

"Well, it's already past noon! If you're going to earn your keep you may as well start now. Close your eyes and hold out your hand, dear."

After Grandmother Sanada's risqué storytelling, Madoka was a little hesitant, but she obediently did as the old woman instructed. There was a rattling of metal and she opened her eyes to discover the woman had given her a small pouch filled with copper coins.

"They're old, but don't let those throat-slitting profiteers take you for a ride. Two momme for a red sea bream, and no more! Also, be an angel and get me another bottle of sake, will you?" Grandmother Sanada looked at her bottle longingly. "I fear this one won't last until dinner. If you head outside and turn right, you'll find a market after four blocks. It's not the best in town but at least you won't get lost before you learn your way around Edo!"

Madoka bowed, which only elicited a cry of "Cut that shit out!" from Grandmother Sanada. She hurried out and back into the dirt roads of Edo, making careful mental notes of the nearby landmarks in case she lost her way. It was a quiet suburban neighborhood and at this time of day there was little traffic; most of the men had already left for work on the early morning fishing boats, and the women took care of their children or worked on manufacturing textiles. The air was fragrant with the scent of rustic cooking, and the air was smoggy from all the cook fires in the homes that lined the street. Madoka followed the directions she was given, and a small marketplace bustled with activity.

"Sushi! Sashimi!" cried one of the vendors.

"Clothing!" objected another.

"Fresh fish!"

"Money changing!"

"Suuuushhiiiii!"

Madoka was overwhelmed. Naturally, she'd regularly gone shopping with her family and stopped by convenience stores with her friends. But in the Meiji era, customer service seemed to consist of each vendor trying to out holler the proprietors of competing stalls. Occasionally, people turned to stare at the nervous-looking girl in the scandalously colored yukata and Madoka blushed self-consciously. She found a promising stall and walked up to it, trying to maintain her confidence.

"One kilo of sea bream, please," she said to the man once she'd made it to the front of the line.

"What?"

Madoka blinked. Of course the man would have no idea what a kilo was.

"Just give me a fish, please," she answered weakly.

The man grunted and wrapped a sea bream in a thin sheath of paper. "What have you got to pay?"

Madoka looked into her pouch. "Two momme?"

"Feh! Hardly anyone uses that junk anymore." The man looked pensive. "I'll sell it for five."

"But grandmother said two and not one momme more."

"Well your grandmother ain't here, is she? Five."

Something about the vendor's demeanor catalyzed Madoka's nervousness into conviction. "Grandmother Sanada said two and that's all I'm paying!"

"Sanada? _Asaji_ Sanada?" The man looked mortified. "Two it is, miss."

Money changed hands, and Madoka searched the marketplace to fill the rest of the order for dinner. After a bit of spirited haggling, she managed to secure enough rice, picked daikon, carrots, and sake for a fine supper. She had to do a circuit around the market before finding the correct road to lead her back to Eisuke's house, and by the time she got back, it was already time to start preparations for dinner.

"Where's Eisuke?" Madoka asked while cutting up the fish for cooking on the open hearth.

"Oh, who knows what that boy gets up to," Grandmother Sanada called from her perch in the living room. "He has a job as a fisherman that he goes to half the time, but he likes to fancy himself a swordsman. He's always hassling old samurai and trying to get them to teach him their techniques. Boys will be boys, but the shopping's got to get done too, innit?"

Madoka nodded and went back to cleaning the fish.

"As for me, I bring in a little money making balms and potions for an old friend of mine who runs an apothecary. We split the proceeds fifty-fifty." She grunted. "At least, she promises me it's fifty-fifty. At any rate we manage to get by, but it will be nice to have a pretty young lady to help out around the house. It could use a good cleaning from top to bottom, but my old bones just aren't up to the task any longer. Most of my powers as a Mahou Shoujo have long fallen dormant."

"Ehh? That can happen?"

Grandmother Sanada was quiet for a minute.

"There are circumstances," she finally answered.

Eisuke showed up just as dinner was ready, informed by the same preternatural senses that bring a cat downstairs just before the owner sets out a bowl of food. He looked exhausted but freshly washed, and even his mangy stubble was gone. If Madoka didn't know any better, she might guess that he'd cleaned up just for her.

"Smells good, Madoka-san," Eisuke carefully allowed.

Madoka blushed. "Just Madoka, okay?"

"There's that strange word again."

She groaned in frustration and threatened him with the kitchen knife until he fled back into the main room of the house.

She finished dinner and carried a tray full of plates into the main room. Grandmother Sanada had already opened the fresh bottle of sake, and she seemed to be pleasantly drunk already, even though the sun was still out. She poured a cup for both her grandson and presumptive granddaughter-in-law, and Madoka hesitantly took a sip of the sweet, brackish liquid. It still burned like Avici Hell. During dinner, Madoka had some difficulties with archaic etiquette.

"You're a weird girl, Madoka," Eisuke announced.

Madoka gave him an akanbe. "Mehhhhhh!"

Grandmother Sanada waved her walking stick at the man. "Now, Eisuke, you be polite. This girl is from another world and she doesn't always know how we do things here."

Eisuke rolled his eyes. "Grandmother, must you always embarrass me with your ridiculous fictions?"

"But it's true!" Madoka cried, with enough sudden vehemence that Eisuke almost found himself convinced.

"Another… world?" he asked.

"Well, from the future," she admitted. "Or maybe it's a parallel timeline. I don't exactly understand how it works and this is the first time I can remember finding myself in a place like this."

Madoka was beautiful in his grandmother's yukata, so Eisuke humored her. "What's it like?"

"Oh! Well, it's actually really amazing. We send rockets into outer space and we can talk to people on the other side of the world instantly. Everyone is connected to this global grid, kind of like a telegraph, and we send photographs and writing and moving pictures to each other all at once." Madoka giggled. "There are so many funny cats in our world, Eisuke!"

"Funny… cats?"

Dinner went on, and some of the tension finally started to break. Eisuke was fascinated by her stories even if he didn't quite believe them, and over time, he started to find himself quite taken by her. Madoka felt warm and her head was starting to swim. She noticed that Grandmother Sanada was surreptitiously refilling her sake cup each time she took a sip, and now she had no idea how much she'd actually drunk. Enough that she dissolved into a fit of giggles when Eisuke dropped most of a bowl of rice into his lap, at least. He glared.

Abruptly, the entire Sanada house started to shake. Madoka would have mistaken it for an earthquake, but then the whole sky split apart with a roar that hurt her chest more than her eardrums. She gasped in shock and agony, and looked wildly at Eisuke, who looked concerned but alert.

"What was that!?" she cried.

Grandmother Sanada was quiet. "I expect it's Old Man Ryu's ambassador, pitching a tantrum over some imagined insult or another. The Dragon Folk have been fighting with Emperor Meiji and blocking him every step of the way in his attempt to modernize Japan, and he's trying to get them to go along with his plans. They haven't proved very accommodating."

Unable to stop her feet, Madoka ran out of the house and looked into the sky, ignoring the Sanada's cries of dismay. And there, flying a few hundred meters above the city, was one of the most astonishing things she'd ever seen. A long, snaking dragon, its red scales glittering in the light of the setting sun, was slithering over the city and rattling buildings with his cries of fury. He finally spat a gout of flame at one of the towers of the imperial palace, singing it but not setting it alight, and then he disappeared over the northern horizon in a fit of wounded dignity.

Madoka's teeth were chattering when she went back inside.

"D-d-d-dragon!" she cried.

"What? They don't have dragons in your world?" Eisuke asked sarcastically.

"No! That was amazing!"

"They're actually quite dangerous," Grandmother Sanada remarked. "They're fiercely territorial and they have no great love for humans. It'll be a miracle if good Emperor Meiji can calm Old Man Ryu down before something awful happens."

"Will it come back?" Madoka asked, awed by its power.

Grandmother Sanada glanced at a vase that had fallen off a shelf and shattered during the dragon's roar, and said, "I'd guess that will prove the end of tonight's negotiations."

The three played mahjong, teaching Madoka some of the more intricate, local rules. A few hours after sundown, Grandmother Sanada shooed them both to their separate rooms.

"I have a big job for you tomorrow morning," she announced. "You'd better both get your sleep, because you two are going to need to go together."

**Chapter 1 End. To be continued...**

****[Author:] Love it or hate it, I better start seeing some reviews from you people!


	2. Chapter 2: The Wrathful Rakshasa

**The Wrathful Rakshasa**

Madoka tried to get up before Grandmother Sanada so she could cook breakfast, but she was chagrinned to discover that the elderly woman beat her to the punch. By the time Madoka made it into the kitchen, the stately house was already full of the sound of fish crackling over the central hearth. Madoka entered the central room with a small amount of trepidation. So much had happened to her in the past twenty four hours, there was no telling what fresh strangeness awaited her.

"Good morning, Madoka-chan. Good to see you finally awake," Sanada cheerfully admonished, gesturing at her with a ceramic cup that was half-empty of sake even at this hour.

Madoka decided to try to match the old woman's condescending tone. "It's your own fault for giving me so much to drink!"

Sanada gave her a hard look, and then suddenly broke down, cackling like a banshee. "Aye, girl, but I couldn't resist seeing your flushed face. Why, when I was your age - "

Madoka deftly cut in before a new round of dubious storytelling could ensue. "Where's Eisuke?"

"Oh, I sent that boy to gather supplies for your journey. I expect you'll be gone a few days."

Madoka was nonplussed. "I have to go… alone… with Eisuke?"

Her parents would have _never_ allowed her to have a sleepover with a boy she just met.

"Well, it won't be all fun and games, you know. I hope you remember your Mahou Shoujo tricks because it's probably going to be quite dangerous. But if you do find yourselves with a spare hour…"

Grandmother Sanada pulled a small packet of herbs out of her robes and tossed it to Madoka. The young lady looked at them curiously.

"What's this?"

Grandmother Sanada grinned evilly. "I'm sure you know how to use them, if you decide to show my grandson a good time."

Madoka yelped and dropped the packet. "Just what do you mean by that!?"

"Suit yourself."

Thankfully Eisuke returned, sparing Madoka further indignities.

"I got everything you asked for, Grandmother." He grunted. "Only the kami know why you wanted me to buy a jug of sake to go on a journey."

"Well, the water won't necessarily be safe to drink, will it? At any rate, here's what I need you to do. I'm out of several herbs that grow on and though I could buy them from an apothecary, it'll be much cheaper to just send the pair of you out to get them instead."

"That's a five day journey," Eisuke protested.

"So? I'll make more money selling my balms than you will playing at being a samurai, boy."

Eisuke went red and looked at his feet.

Grandmother Sanada reflected, "Two days there, one day to gather, two days back; I'll see if Tatsu-chan is free for Mahjong, how bored I will be without someone to bully - "

"You're speaking out loud, Grandmother!" Eisuke interrupted. "Let's go, Madoka, before she can do something else outrageous."

She stopped him, "Don't forget this."

Grandmother Sanada tossed him something heavy, wrapped in a blanket. Eisuke pushed the folds apart and peered inside.

"My katana!?" he asked in amazement.

"You'll need it, I reckon. Don't let yourself get caught with it inside the city, the last thing we need is more trouble with the authorities. Madoka-chan, I assume you're capable of looking after yourself without an earthly weapon?"

The girl nodded. Though she had not yet attempted to transform, she could still feel the power thrumming under her fingertips, available at her call at any time.

"Good. Now be off with you."

The two left the Sanada residence, with Eisuke in the lead. She was still attracting stares in Sanada's red yukata, and it was obvious that her sudden appearance had caused no small amount of gossip among the superstitious and provincial people of Edo-eraJapan. Without celebrities or idols splayed across mass media to hold their attention, they turned their curiosity - and sometimes cruelty - inward on their own neighborhoods. Madoka kept close behind him, hurrying to keep up with his long strides and forceful pace. They passed markets and restaurants and general goods stores; they passed theaters and apothecaries and apartments; they passed temples and extravagant displays of wealth – and also, displays of piteous poverty. The air was thick with the scent of fish, fire, and dust, and Madoka was hard pressed not to cough from the irritation in her lungs.

"Is it really true?" Eisuke asked suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

"Did you really come from another world?"

Some of the differences were subtle. Instead of maneki neko greeting customers in the entryways of shops, there were cute little ceramic dogs. Statues of the Buddha Hotei, which were widely displayed in late 21st century Japan, seemed to be completely taboo here. Grim faced policemen kept the city under guard with European pistols prominently holstered in their belts. But other differences… Madoka remembered the might of the roaring dragon with a shudder.

"Yes," she nodded.

"I thought Grandmother was uttering her nonsense again," Eisuke admitted. "But you don't seem like a liar to me."

The two lapsed back into comfortable silence. Madoka glanced at the young man's muscles rippling under his tunic. Like, and yet unlike, someone she knew who was very important to her. Madoka wondered if what Grandmother Sanada said about souls was true. The old woman was an inscrutable mixture of wisdom, nonsense, and filthy-minded perversion; so unlike any other adult Madoka had met in her life. It was the first time an adult had actually treated Madoka as an equal. She always knew she was going to grow up sometime, of course, but it was strange for it to happen all at once. And even stranger that it should happen in a familiar yet alien world.

"Is it really going to take five days?" she wondered aloud.

"Yes. The distance there is about sixteen ri. You can't even seeMt. Takao from here, it's surrounded by foothills and at any rate the buildings block the view. We'll get out of Edo and have to pass several ri of rice fields before we'll be able to see the mountain itself."

Madoka laughed out loud, as much at herself as anything else. "If we took a plane we could be there in ten minutes."

"Sixteen ri in ten minutes?" Eisuke stared at her in wonderment.

"The planes we build for war go even faster. They can go one ri every second, give or take. And the people who live in space are in a special kind of house that flies above the Earth at two ri every second."

"Impossible," Eisuke muttered. "You'd be crushed to death."

But he didn't really disbelieve her. The story was too fantastic to believe, but too absurd to invent.

"Do you miss your world?" he asked.

Madoka scrunched up her face and thought about it hard. "Not exactly. I haven't been here for very long – when you found me on the beach, that must have been right after I arrived. I haven't been away long enough to feel homesick yet, but I do miss my family."

"They must have been real weirdos if they raised somebody as strange as you."

Madoka was about to protest, but she saw that Eisuke was working hard on swallowing a mischievous smile.

The road was thronged with people of all kinds. There were many farmers leading ox carts full of vegetables into the city, and others returning to the fields with pungent night soil to use as fertilizer. Merchants jangled with bags of coins secreted in the fabric of their clothes, and Meiji policemen patrolled the road to make sure no one was robbed or assaulted on their watch. Madoka was surprised to see that there were even a few foreigners here and there in the crowd; but of course, this was the Meiji era, and Japan had just reopened its borders for trade after several hundred years of self-imposed isolation. As they continued to travel well into the dusk, the road cleared out and very few people remained. Madoka yawned.

"Are we going to stay at an inn tonight?" she asked.

"No, we shouldn't spend money unnecessarily. The weather is so good that our bedrolls will suffice."

The night _was_ warm, and Madoka told herself that it would be just like camping. Eisuke noticed that a policeman was headed their way.

"Tss, Madoka. I think that person is about to ask us some questions. Just stay quiet and let me do the talking, okay? We don't want him to think we're weird. Oh, and you need to pretend to be my wife. If I were out travelling with a strange woman, it might raise some awkward questions we'd be best to avoid."

"O-okay," Madoka answered with a blush.

The policeman came close enough to hail them.

"Excuse me."

"Yes, sir?" Eisuke asked, keeping his face perfectly calm.

"Where are you two headed this fine evening?"

Eisuke judged that the easiest way to get the policeman to leave them alone was to invent the least interesting lie he could possibly imagine. "My wife and I are going to visit my parents in Takao."

"Is that so?" the policeman asked sharply, causing Madoka to squeak with worry.

Eisuke remained impassive. "Yes, sir."

"Well, you'd best be careful then," the officer replied. "There's a rumor that a dangerous yasha is in that area, preying on travelers and eating them down to the bone. I'd dismiss it as rural superstition, but there've been several official reports of persons missing from that area recently. Maybe there's a dragon gone rogue."

"We'll be careful, sir," Eisuke said pensively.

"See that you do. You seem like a fine young couple to me."

With that, the police officer left to bother some other traveler.

"Visiting your parents, ehh?" Madoka asked.

"It got him to leave us alone, didn't it? It's illegal to carry a katana these days."

There was a waxing gibbous moon providing a fair amount of light, so the two marched on until Madoka was completely exhausted. Eisuke was secretly impressed with the girl; despite leaving their house in Edo so late in the morning, they were almost on schedule to arrive at Takao late the next day. Madoka bitterly rued the lack of shower facilities where they set up their bedrolls in a rice patty off the site of the road; she was covered in sweat, grime, and ick from travelling all day on the dusty road. She didn't think she'd ever been filthier in her entire life, even during school camping trips. Exhausted by the pace of the journey, she fell asleep almost immediately.

Eisuke woke her up before dawn. She groaned groggily and tried to go back to sleep, but the young man was insistent.

"We should reach tonight, if we hurry," he told her.

The terrain was largely flat, and almost all of the land was taken up by farms. The people of Edo were primarily growing radishes and rice, but there were also fields of tara and akebi. The pair ate as they walked. Madoka was used to a more modern and Westernized palate, but the picked fish and soy-cured rice tasted surprisingly good despite her initial misgivings. Bored farmers waved to the pair; the red yukata Madoka was wearing still drew an inordinate amount of curious interest. Suddenly, Eisuke threw a hand across her chest, bringing her to a stop.

"What is it?" she whispered.

"Dragon."

Madoka looked into the sky, and sure enough a long, snakey dragon was flying purposefully overhead. This one was gold, and its scales were iridescent in the bright light of early morning. The two watched in immobile silence until the dragon crossed over the eastern horizon.

"Do they really eat people?" Madoka asked when Eisuke deemed it safe to start walking again.

"Sometimes. There are long-standing treaties between the Japanese Emperor and the dragonfolk, but sometimes incidents still occur. The dragons are like normal people, really; some are wise, some are scheming, some are mischievous, and some are cruel. It's strange for me to think that you don't have them in your world. Did humans kill them off?"

"I don't think so," Madoka said. "In our world, they're nothing more than a legend, really. Maybe some people can see very slightly into this world and that's where they got the idea."

"Who can say? Despite her proud declarations, my grandmother doesn't know as much as she claims."

Madoka finally asked a question that had been on her mind for some time. "Why does she think we're going to get married?"

Eisuke paused, and then laughed. "She's been bothering me to marry for a long time, now. But I'm still a young man and I'm in the prime of my life, so I'd rather go on adventures than just settle down with a wife when I still have so many years ahead of me. I suppose she wants to make sure she has a grandchild to carry on the Sanada family name, and it's probably just her little way of dropping hints that I need to grow up."

"I've never really thought about it much," Madoka reflected. "I haven't even had a serious boyfriend yet, and people where I'm from don't get married until they're much older, after they attend university… I guess that's something I'm never going to do…"

Eisuke was alarmed to discover that Madoka was crying. He raised his hands in supplication, unsure of how to react, but Madoka just shook her head. Eisuke stared at his feet until the squall passed. When Madoka finally cried herself out, she was brighter and cheerier than ever. She asked questions about everything, and Eisuke would have taken her for an idiot if he weren't aware she'd been born and raised in a different world. She wanted to know how everything worked, how everything fit together, how so many people could live with a level of technology she indelicately described as "primitive."

He listened patiently while she described her time in Mitakihara, a city that didn't even exist yet and wouldn't exist for another hundred years, if this world line followed the one she was familiar with. She told him more about being a Mahou Shoujo, and it was strange for him to think of his grandmother a member of a long line of magical warriors. Madoka told him a little about her ultimate sacrifice, and why she thought it was probably impossible for her to return to her home to resume her life as she remembered it. Eisuke found her story strange, and more than a little sad.

"I can't imagine what I'd do if I returned home and my grandmother didn't even remember me," he admitted.

Madoka was quiet, but she didn't cry again. "My family was so kind. My mother was a very hard worker and just a little ridiculous, and my father stayed home and looked out for me and my little brother. I'm never going to see anybody from school again, or the other Mahou Shoujo who worked so hard to protect me… it makes me kind of sad. I know I did the right thing, but it's still difficult. Thank you."

"What for?"

"You and your grandmother have been so kind to me!"

Eisuke blushed. "It's nothing. I couldn't just leave you alone on the beach to be sucked into who knows what kind of perfidy."

Now that they were out of the city, the air was a little less smoggy. Madoka had always associated the smog with earlier times when people burned petrol in cars and caused a big environmental crisis, but it seemed like enough open hearths and industrial operations could also create terrible air quality. Now she was free to breathe, and she took a deep breath of country air. She sneezed.

"Sorry. I guess I'm allergic to the country."

Eisuke was wry. "You don't have the country in your world?"

"Maybe not as much as you'd think. I live – lived – in the city, after all."

"Look."

Eisuke pointed to a small mountain ahead of them and a little ways to the south. It wasn't much larger than the hills around it, but it did tower over the rice fields below with an aura of quiet dignity. Though the air on the road was hot and muggy, the mountain was wreathed in a cool, inviting fog.

"Is that ?"

"That's right. If we follow this road another ri, we should be able to take a tributary off to Takao itself."

"Is it a very big town?" Madoka asked.

"No, it's quite small, only a few hundred people live there."

Madoka found it difficult to envision how a town that small could operate. "What do they do for money?"

"Oh, there are a few farms and they raise livestock. There's also a family who is famous for their inkstones. I can't afford the ones from Takao, but I do enjoy practicing my calligraphy. Do you do calligraphy, Madoka?"

She admitted, "Well, no. If I have to write anything on real paper, I use a ballpoint pen."

"A what?"

To Eisuke's increasing befuddlement, Madoka tried to explain the intricacies of a simple biro pen.

"So," he tried, "you're saying the inkstone is _inside_ the pen?"

"Yes, but it's actually a liquid in a tiny tube."

Eisuke shook his head. "People from your world make even a quill and parchment unspeakably complicated."

"If your world changes at the same speed mine did, you might live long enough to see the first human being walk on the moon."

Eisuke snorted. "I'm a simple fisherman, and I take care of my grandmother. The more you talk about your world the more I want to stay in Edo for the rest of my life!"

Madoka laughed.

They reached the tributary road to Takao in the late afternoon, and Eisuke pushed her to hurry in spite of her increasing exhaustion. Though she'd participated gamely in her school's physical education, and went on hikes with her family with some regularity, this kind of sustained and purposeful pace made her calves ache with fatigue. If that weren't enough, the sandals worn by the people of Edo bit into her feet and raised painful blisters during the long walk. But she didn't want to show weakness in front of Eisuke, so she pressed on in spite of the pain, and the path started steadily rising into the foothills at the base of . The road to the town was nearly empty, and they only saw a handful of people on their way to or from the small hamlet.

"Takao is a small village, but there are usually more people on the road," Eisuke muttered.

"Is that a bad sign?"

"Maybe. It doesn't help if that policeman is spreading strange rumors."

Madoka shivered. "You don't think it might be true, do you? Are there really yasha in this world?"

Eisuke thought about it, and shrugged. "I don't know for sure."

"Are we far away?"

"Not too much farther."

Sure enough, after a few minutes Madoka could smell the smoke rising from the small village. When they were still well outside the town, Eisuke called a halt, and Madoka gratefully kicked off the bloody sandals. Eisuke noticed her distress.

"Your feet are torn to ribbons!" he exclaimed.

She tried to play it cool. "It's nothing, I'm fine."

"You could get an infection if you don't do something about it. There's dirt and contamination all over this road, and there might be evil spirits, too. Sit down."

Madoka sat, and Eisuke rummaged through his pack of supplies until he found what he was looking for. He took out a small ceramic jar and uncorked it, and the air was filled with a ghastly odor. Even Eisuke had to admit the smell was awful.

"Feh! Anything that smells this bad must be medicine. Here, rub this on your feet."

Madoka was dubious, but she obediently slathered her pained feet with the ointment. Then she remembered something Homura used to be able to do, and she decided to try it for herself. The mystical energy thrummed beneath her fingertips, and she could feel the beating of her heart in the pads of her fingers. She drew threads of warm, buttery light along her blistered feet with her fingers, and she was gratified to discover the bloody pustules dissolved at her touch like foam on the shore of the sea.

Eisuke was astonished. "I never knew my grandmother's medicine could be so potent."

"It's not that," Madoka corrected him. "I'm using the power of the Mahou Shoujo. I have to be sparing though, I don't know exactly how I'm supposed to recharge it in this world."

"I thought that was more of my grandmother's storytelling. I can't believe abilities like that are real."

Madoka was bemused. "This isn't any stranger than dragons, is it?"

"It is to me."

Madoka found herself emotionally drained from the effort of healing her feet. "Did your grandmother ever say anything about how she recharged her powers?"

Eisuke thought back to half-remembered tales from his childhood. Considering his grandmother's garrulousness, and his own disinterest in her confabulations, he had trouble recalling the kind of information Madoka was looking for.

"Eating," he finally said. "Eating the flesh of things that are still alive. Grandmother said that sometimes she had to eat terrible things."

Madoka shivered. It wasn't unheard of in Japan for sashimi to be served not only raw but in fact still living, but Madoka's parents hadn't been the types to pursue culinary adventurism, and Madoka had never actually done it herself.

"Maybe when we return to Edo, I'll try ikizukuri…" Madoka said pensively. "I like seafood, so that wouldn't be so bad, right?"

"Suit yourself."

Eisuke unfolded his bedroll and prepared their campsite for the evening. Madoka watched intently while the young man lit a small fire, using matches that were tipped with sulfur. It had been a couple years since Madoka had been camping, and she was fascinated by the simple procedure of starting a fire. Less fascinating were the bugs, which were attracted by their exhalations of carbon dioxide and wouldn't leave them alone for ten seconds a time. They tried to crawl into her nose and ears, and Madoka exhausted herself swatting at them while Eisuke told stories about fishing. Finally, she admitted to a pressing need for sleep.

"That's fine, then. After all that talk of monsters, I think we should keep watch tonight, even though we're so close to Takao. I'll take the first watch and I'll wake you up after midnight."

"Okay," she answered.

Almost immediately, she lay down and was asleep. After what seemed like only a few minutes, Eisuke was gently shaking her shoulder, trying to rouse her back into consciousness.

"Ugh, is it time already?" she asked with bleary eyes.

"Sorry, Madoka. But we both need to be rested for tomorrow's gathering. Just think of how good it will be to sleep on a futon when we're back in Edo!"

"That sounds wonderful," Madoka admitted, stifling a yawn.

Keeping watch until the first light of dawn was one of the most boring things Madoka had done in her entire life. At first, she jumped at every stray sound, startled by a log falling deeper into the fire or the braying of a horse from Takao village. But that period of jumpiness only lasted for a few minutes before she sank into a sleepy haze, and she pinched herself all over in an attempt to stay awake for the long night of inactivity. Eisuke snored gently, breathing in and out in rhythmic tones that reminded Madoka of waves crashing on the ocean. The tuneless buzz of cicadas almost lured Madoka to sleep several times, but she managed to catch herself and return to wakefulness so as not to embarrass herself in front of Eisuke. It was a profound relief when the gradual lightening of the sky became the zodiacal light, and then the first fingers of dawn appeared where the sun gently brushed the thin clouds high above . She roused Eisuke from his slumber.

"Time to get up!" she announced with the forced cheer of someone covering up their exhaustion.

Eisuke grunted, but he got up and helped pack up their campsite all the same.

They received an unusual amount of attention when they entered Takao an hour later. Perhaps it was no surprise, with Madoka's scarlet yukata covered in filth, but the people there must see city travelers often enough that it shouldn't be that odd of a sight for them. A few muttered and made superstitious gestures with their fingers. A couple of the men glared aggressively, and a few took steps forward as if to drive off the intruders.

"Not very welcoming, are they?" Eisuke muttered to Madoka under his breath. "It wasn't like this last time I was here."

Madoka replied, "If there's nothing we need here, we should just hurry through."

"Agreed."

The pair were about to exit along the road that led to when someone from the village finally addressed them directly. It was a rheumatic old woman, and she looked like she'd had every emotion gradually drained out of her until only spite and bitterness remained.

"You don't want to be going up that road," she shrieked.

Eisuke turned to face her. "What do you mean?"

"Yasha!"

"So I've heard. Has anyone actually seen this yokai?"

But the woman wouldn't answer him. Finally, Eisuke grabbed Madoka's hand, and the pair walked out of the village on their way to .

"I'm worried," Madoka admitted.

"I am worried as well. The residents of Takao might be provincial, but I've never known them to be so hostile before. And all this talk about flesh-eaters… I think I know why Grandmother demanded I bring my katana."

Madoka made sure she could still summon that faint tingle in her fingertips that indicated the presence of her mysterious power.

After exiting the village, the path became circuitous and gained altitude very rapidly. Though was small as mountains went, it still dwarfed the two humans, and the road to the summit was rocky and poorly maintained. Eisuke stopped a few times to pick the leaves or flowers of some plant; he'd been gathering with Grandmother Sanada before, and he knew what herbs she needed for her concoctions. Eisuke said that the least picked-over herbs would be found near the summit so they continued upwards towards the pinnacle. As the morning drew into noon, the sky darkened considerably, and there was a flash of light and then the ground rumbled beneath their feet. A thunderstorm was brewing in the mountains.

"Figures," Eisuke muttered. "At this rate we'll be trapped in the downpour before we can finish and return to town. And I doubt any of those people in Takao would be willing to put us up for the night, even if we paid."

Madoka scrunched her eyes and looked hard. She hadn't been able to help Eisuke much with his search for herbs and she hoped she could find something that would protect them from the coming downpour.

"Look over there!" she said, catching sight of what looked like a cave.

Eisuke followed her finger with his eyes.

"That could work," he finally said. "Thunderstorms this time of year only last for an hour or two. It's too bad the road is going to be nothing but mud when we return the village."

"I'd give a hundred thousand yen for a shower right now," Madoka said longingly.

"Ha! You could just strip down naked and stand out in the rain," Eisuke replied.

They both blushed as they thought of Madoka's sudden, nude appearance on the beach. They were saved from further contemplation by the first patter of raindrops on the tops of their heads, and the pair ran at breakneck pace to get to the cave before they were deluged by the storm. Eisuke made it first, and he laughed and panted in the entryway to the cave while Madoka struggled to keep up. The rain began in earnest, and the two watched it come down from the safety of the cave entrance.

"That's some storm!" Madoka said, shaking her arms and trying to get some of the muddy water off of herself.

"I like thunderstorms best when I'm warm and indoors," Eisuke replied. "Ugh, what's that smell?"

For the first time, Madoka noticed that the cave stank to high heaven. It smelled like old fires, blood, and the most intense odor of putrefying rot that she'd ever experienced. And not only that, but there was an aura of palpable evil to the cave, too – it reminded her unmistakably of the barrier of a Witch. Though she'd cleared the multiverse of Witches in one fell swoop, that didn't mean that she'd put an end to wickedness.

"Eisuke, I think something's wrong here," she said quietly, drawing close to him.

Their conversation was interrupted by a rustle from deep inside the cave. Suddenly, a fire blossomed to life in the center of the chamber and illuminated a gristly scene. There were body parts strewn all over the floor. Arms, legs, partially dismembered torsos, and even heads missing their eyeballs were all in evidence. Each of them was in a different state of decomposition, and the smell of rot became even more nauseating now that they were aware of the source. The dead were of both genders and from all ages and walks of life – here, a small child with its arms and legs removed. There, a corpse so far into the decomposition process that it was impossible to guess what kind of person it might have been in life. A red-haired woman stopped chewing on an infant's arm and casually threw it to the side.

"Fresh meat," she said with a wicked grin, shucking off her sackcloth robe.

Beneath the robe, she was only wearing a small loincloth, and tape to bind down her breasts, so much the better for fighting. With a cruel smile, she chanted in some strange language and started closing the distance that lay between them. Eisuke rummaged through his supplies and drew his katana.

"Stay away!" he cried, edging away from her while keeping her in the center of his field of vision.

But there was something familiar about the girl that rang a bell in the back of Madoka's mind.

"K-Kyoko-chan?" she asked, befuddled.

Madoka overheard a familiar voice in the back of her mind. _Kyoko, that girl is the heretic I warned you about. You must destroy her_.

Eisuke asked out loud, "Madoka, you know this strange foreign girl?"

"I was born in Nagasaki!" Kyoko screamed, with such vehemence that Eisuke took an involuntary step backwards. "I. Am. _Not. A. **Foreigner!**_"

With that, Kyoko's strange counterpart drew her magical weapon. It was a giant sword, almost as tall as she was and shaped like a giant meat cleaver. She rushed Madoka, and Madoka was stunned into a state of confusion. She didn't want to draw her weapon against a dear friend, but at the same time, the Kyoko-chan she knew wasn't a crazed, mass-murdering cannibal. Eisuke deftly stepped in front of her and raised his sword to block Kyoko's first strike.

The sword was enormous, and it took the woman a tremendous amount of effort to get it moving. But once it was cutting through the air, its huge size worked in its favor, and she was able to build enormous momentum. Eisuke judged his parry carefully but he was still just barely able to deflect the blow; Kyoko's sword came down with so much force that it almost broke his wrist just to shove it aside. The blade swung wide and then crashed into the ground, biting deep into the bloodstained floor of the cave of deadly horrors.

"Madoka-chan!" Madoka could hear the panic in Eisuke's voice, and his attempt to mask it. "She's so strong! Can't you do something?"

"I - "

Kyoko freed her sword from the ground and brought it up again, slowly working up her momentum. Her hands danced in an intricate ballet to keep the sword moving; if she missed a beat, the weapon was so massive that she'd probably send it clattering to the ground. Madoka finally drew her bow, but she couldn't help but hold her fire. This woman might not be the real Kyoko-chan, but the resemblance was so intense that Madoka hesitated, unable to fire on this distorted image of her dear friend.

Eisuke carefully stepped backwards, trying to keep out of the range of the immense weapon, and occasionally thrusting with his katana to try to force it out of her hands. Her practiced motion was too quick, and he only succeeded in slowing the giant blade a little with each parry. Unless he could exhaust her, he was clearly outmatched, and Madoka knew that the full powers of a Mahou Shoujo were probably entirely unknown to the innocent young man…

_Forget the boy, Kyoko-chan. Kill the girl!_

Kyoko howled in response, "Shut the fuck up, Kyubey! I'll do whatever I want!"

"Kyoko-chan, I'm begging you to stop this!" Madoka cried.

"No one tells me what to do!"

Kyoko brought the blade crashing down on Eisuke. He jumped out of the way and pushed it aside with his weapon, and missed having it carve deeply into his innards by mere centimeters. He couldn't get close enough to strike her while her sword was in motion; despite its size, she was quick enough to bring it into position to push his katana aside as if it were a child's toy.

"Madoka! _Do_ something!" Eisuke shouted.

Reluctantly, Madoka drew back the string of her great bow. Kyoko sent Eisuke sprawling into the dirt with another well-timed strike, and she knew she was out of time to try to convince her friend to disengage her attack. She aimed carefully so as not to hit Eisuke in the confusion, and then let the magical bolt fly. It thundered through the air, casting strange pink shadows along with the light of the bonfire, and it the bolt thundered into Kyoko's side and charred naked flesh.

Kyoko screamed in pain and toppled to the ground. Her sword vanished; she lost the concentration required to keep it in her own dimensional plane. Eisuke took the opportunity to stand up and retrieve his own blade, and he towered over her and aimed a careful killing blow at her neck. He was unwilling to risk giving her enough time to recover and threaten the pair once more.

_You failed, Kyoko. It's time to live to fight another day._

Kyoko just hissed a curse through the pain, and then all the lights in the cave went dead with a roar of hissing steam. Kyubey must have something to put out the fire, and Madoka could hear Kyoko scrambling to escape while Eisuke brought his katana down into empty space, misled by the darkness. Madoka chased her out of the cave, calling on Kyoko to wait, but the woman completely ignored her. Madoka watched as Kyoko escaped into the downpour, still nearly naked, followed by a shape that looked almost exactly like the Kyubey she knew except the color of his coat was grey instead of white. He turned around for long enough to give Madoka the evil eye, and then they both vanished into the storm.

Eisuke soon caught up to Madoka at the entrance to the cave. They both shared an unspoken agreement not to return any deeper into the chamber of horrors than was necessary.

"I guess there really was a yasha," Eisuke said quietly. "Do you really know that person?"

"Yes. No. I – I don't know. She reminds me of a person who was a dear friend to me in my own world, but here, she's so different. Here she's a monster."

"That must have been very difficult for you. Thank you for saving me."

Madoka nodded, and the pair waited at the base of the foul cave until the thunderstorm rained itself out.

**End Chapter 2. To be continued…**


End file.
